


Lucky Charm

by subtropicalStenella



Series: Playing the Long Game [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Clothed Sex, F/M, Frottage, Kanan Jarrus is a con artist, Lapdance, Partners in Crime, Resolved Sexual Tension, Undercover, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vaginal Fingering, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-02-05 20:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12801960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtropicalStenella/pseuds/subtropicalStenella
Summary: Sequel to BadassLongcoat: Undercover Shenanigans. Hera's got it bad, but she has payback planned.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Just a quick jaunt to Onderon, _ they said.

_ It's a simple pickup _ , they said. 

_ One and done _ , they said.

 

Yeah, sure, until Black Sun decided that no, rather than working with their usual arms dealers, they'd steal  _ her  _ shipment of refurbished DC-15s and beat the piss out of her copilot.

Okay to be fair her copilot was plenty capable of taking care of himself. He probably lost more clothing and dignity than actual blood, and the clothing had been  _ gambled _ away along with his little bit of savings in an attempt to cadge information out of the local thugs before resorting to violence anyway. Whether or not he'd started the fight(s) was still undetermined, which meant  _ yes, probably by mouthing off at someone. _

 

Unfortunately, dear  _ Jackie's  _ information--obtained via dislocated fingers after Kanan decided he still wasn't up to scratch on the Jedi mindfucking thing just yet--was only so useful. Sure they were able to find out where Black Sun had taken their guns, even who they were selling to, but by the time they  _ got  _ there, everything was already gone and she'd had to bribe the dockmaster for manifests and transfer documentation so they could figure out  _ where _ and try to steal them  _ back. _

That was four cycles ago and they had only just tracked the shipment down to fucking  _ Sullust  _ of all shitdamn places, and she was taking her frustrations out on the water heater/recycler/purifier, which was as cranky as she was. Though that was mostly because apparently Humans like to  _ boil _ themselves when they bathed. She'd had to get a new cafmaker too, because he drank it by the liter. And tea. A better addiction than moonshine, she supposed. She scrubs a bit of sealant off her forehead with her wrist and freezes at the sound of footsteps in the cargo bay below her. 

 

What the  _ hell  _ is he doing up so early? He hasn't seen her, but then again she  _ is  _ up inside the guts of the Ghost and up to her lekku in machinery.

And apparently she needs to make him do laundry, because he's down to a set of three-sizes-too-big sleep pants cinched tight around his lean hips and a faded, holey  _ Bad Company: Got Your Six, Coreworld Tour ‘22  _ shirt that had probably also been the wrong size  _ before  _ he ripped the sleeves, collar and midriff out to make it 'fit’. He didn't even  _ like _ Bad Company, where did he even get that shirt anyway? 

 

More importantly how did he make the “backwater trashlord of the dumpster kath” look  _ work  _ for him? He should look like an idiot, but instead the soft pants are clinging to his razorblade hipbones with just enough determination to remain decent while simultaneously showing off the dimples at the base of his spine in a blatant advertisement of “Hey, remember us? Humans have this sexy muscle grouping too! And nice butts!”

… eh, she could use a break. Ogling her disconcertingly attractive employee/copilot/partner/handyman/bruiser definitely counts as a break, right? And he  _ is  _ attractive. She had sort of vaguely placed him at a soft 7, y'know, like y’do, but had been more concerned with getting them off Gorse and then back in business to really pay attention.

Turns out that after a few solid meals and some sleep, under the crystal-mining dust and the dirt ground into his skin and hair, he was rapidly approaching double digits. Still looked like he'd been dragged through a hell or two behind a speeder, but what war veteran didn't? Even if he was still on the lee side of thirty and shouldn't have been a veteran at all. The scars proved it, a pair of nasty through-and-through blaster shots high on his shoulder and hip with the uneven, sort of stretched look that meant he'd grown a  _ lot  _ since getting them. 

 

That's depressing, and not appropriate thoughts for a break, Syndulla. How about how you can see the scar on his lower back especially well because he's reaching up above his head, going up on his toes like he's trying to touch the cargo bay ceiling?

Yes, that's better. He's tall, but not  _ that  _ tall, and she can hear his joints crackle from here as he stretches with a low groan, rolling his wrists and letting the motion ripple down his spine. He shakes his hands and neck out and she props her elbows on reclamation pipe. What is he  _ doing?  _

 

Huh. Apparently he's bringing his arms up again so he can fall into a backbend, hands planted firmly under him and feet braced wide to bridge himself. He's facing her now, sort of, but he's upside down and arcing hard to look under himself, shifting his weight back and forth between his limbs.

… so that he can walk his hands back towards his feet. Humans can't usually bend that way, from what she's seen, he must be unusually flexible. 

 

_ Ha  _ there goes his shirt, loose fabric falling down around his neck and shoulders. Looks like the torn piercing has healed, enough that he's taken off the bacta patch, and most of the bruising has faded to a surprisingly nice greenish yellow. 

 

Hmm, looks like that's the farthest he can go, braced on his elbows in a three-quarter circle and shifting his feet, trying to… yep, trying to stand on his own head. Can't quite make it, barely touching his toes to his ponytail, and the quiet cursing means he probably  _ used _ to be able to do it at some point.

A short, disgusted sigh and he walks his hands back out, brings his feet together, and kicks up into a handstand. A few vertical pushups once he's stable, like he has something to prove to himself. Good thing his shirt has more or less fallen over his face, she can stare at the long, lean stretch of his smoothly flexing chest and stomach all she wants. 

 

He's one of the fuzzy Humans. Not like, wookiee furry, it's only on his front, underarms and limbs for one thing, but there's enough to say “Yes, this  _ is _ a mammal, and if you follow this thinner bit down, you'll find a dick!”

Which, naturally, was an object of curiosity because, well… Humans had nice dicks. Better than twi’lek as a statistical standard, and their morphogenic trends ran the opposite direction. Guy had big, thick lekku? Prepare for disappointment, because that's where all the growth went. Humans though? Big hands, noses, things like that, all indicated size in other important areas. And… well… Kanan...

Is shifting around again, and he's started breathing very slowly, deliberately, as he shifts his weight onto  _ one _ hand, his other hand and the opposite leg going out to counterbalance, spreading out like the points of a star. It's… strangely compelling. He shouldn't be able to do that,  _ any  _ of that, stay upright and upside down for this long, let alone hold himself up and perfectly still on one hand. Is it… is this a Jedi thing?

 

She doesn't get to find out, because  _ of course _ Chopper has to take this opportunity to be an asshole, and flings what looks like the suction clamp she dropped earlier  _ right  _ into his stomach, making him instinctively curl up and collapse down to the deck in a heap with a curse.

Worse,  _ she _ reflexively yells at Chopper for being an ass, and gives up her position as her cantankerous astromech scoots back out of the cargo bay, chortling to himself.  

 

“ _ Ha!  _ Thought that might be you,” Kanan says. 

 

Ah,  _ hell. _

 

He's sprawled out on his back with one hand behind his head, grinning up at her. The other one is out sideways, calling his drink to him. Good thing he put a lid on it, it moves a bit too quickly and probably would have sloshed hot caf all over him, since his shirt is still up around his collarbones.

 

“Who else would it be?” she grumbles, and debates trying to pretend like she hasn't been watching him for the last… half hour. Whoops.

“No, I mean like--” he taps the side of his head with two fingers. “--here. I think I'm starting to be able to sense  _ people _ again, feel them enough to tell them apart.”

“Uh-huh. And what do I  _ feel  _ like?” she asks skeptically, propping her chin on her hands.

“Springtime,” he says easily, and drinks his caf while she groans and rolls her eyes. He shakes his head and continues with, “I mean it, it's not a line. You feel like  _ green _ and  _ new  _ and  _ change _ and that punch-in-the-gut, weightless feeling of coming out of a sharp dive… like _ flight. _ Birds and stuff. So, y’know. Springtime.” 

 

Is he  _ blushing? _

Good thing her lekku are up and behind her inside the Ghost’s guts, because they've gone all dark and curly. 

 

“Hell of a collection you've got there,” she says, flicks her fingers up and down at him. Yes, because  _ that's _ how you distract from the fact that you've been ogling him--tell him you've been ogling him.

“Nice, right?” he says, but his smile turns brittle. “First-and-worst all at once. Just about destroyed my right kidney, had to hang out in a bacta tank for a while and grow a new one.”

He taps the one on his shoulder and then his hip. “Want to kiss these better too?”

 

Aaaaand he's back. “You can kiss  _ my  _ ass. That line only works once.”

“Can't blame a guy for trying,” he says, shrugging easily and sitting up. “Need a hand up there?”

“No, I've almost got it.”

 

She doesn't, but he doesn't need to know that, and maybe he'll fuck off and let her work. Because it's definitely his fault she got distracted.

“Suit yourself. I'll save some waffles for you. Big day of scamming fellow con artists ahead and all that,” he says as he climbs up the ladder into the common area.

Wait, they don't have waffles. They have the stuff to _make_ waffles, but... he  _ cooks  _ too _? _

 

\--


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the one hand, he knows what he's doing, and does it well. On the other hand, he knows what he's doing and does it _really_ well.

 There's an _art_ to running any con, heist or pickup. Having a plan is a big part of that. So is having fifteen backup plans and a willingness to adapt. They're still figuring out how to work together, so the plan is simple:

 

  * Split up
  * Hit the few Sun-friendly bars.
  * Blend in. 
  * Find out where the sale is going down.
  * Fuck it up.
  * Retrieve their shipment.
  * Deliver their shipment.
  * Profit.



 

Some of the later stages would need further tweaking and adjusting as they went along, but for now that'll do. Or so she thought.

Obviously  _ blending in _ is a little different for each of them, but nowhere in  _ any  _ of her plans was  _ Lose what little money we have left and more we don't even have playing billiards and drinking _ so what the  _ fuck _ does he think he's doing?!

 

“Don't fuck it up,” the big Togruta drawls, leaning on his cue as Jarrus walks the table.

“Laugh it up, Stripes, I think my luck’s about to come in,” he says, and lines up a shot on one of the last three solid-colored balls. 

She doesn't say anything, just leans down on her crossed arms  _ right _ in his eyeline. Just to see what happens. She couldn't resist the timing anyway. Her stolen nametag says  _ Vrei _ . "Luck."

He looks up from his shot--of course he does--with a sly smile, his drawl gone low and smooth to ask,

 

“You gonna be my lucky charm, darlin?”

 

before he manages to continue upwards to her face only a few seconds later. Probably because he recognizes her  _ particular _ shade of pale green, even if he's never seen this much of her, in this little clothing. 

Her smug grin when he starts, flinches, and subsequently mistimes his shot, sending the white striker spinning off sideways into the  _ last _ striped ball--worse, knocking it into a side pocket and killing his own game--is  _ entirely  _ justified.  _ Ass.  _

 

The Togruta cracks up, and so do the pair of Zabrak leaning against the table with him. “Guess not!”

“He ain't worth your time, dollface,” one laughs, taking a long drink of something that smokes ominously. “That ain't the first time he’s blown his  _ shot _ too early, and it won't be the last. Now, me on the other hand…”

“Fuck you, Vetra,” Jarrus snaps into his beer. “Get your own.”

 

_ Wow.  _ Seriously?

 

“You're  _ broke,  _ shithead, unless you want to bet that chrono,” the Togruta says, tips his chin at Jarrus’ wrist. He doesn't  _ own  _ a chrono, let alone one that nice, which means he stole it off someone at some point.

Jarrus shoves his sleeve up and takes the chrono off, slaps it onto the table. “That, and double or nothing on a rematch says I can convince her to stay anyway.”

“This I gotta see,” the second Zabrak snickers. 

“C’mere, sweetness,” Jarrus says, one long-fingered hand wrapping around her upper arm to pull her in close, his goatee tickling the corner of her jaw as he gets his mouth right under her earcone like he wants to whisper something seductive and filthy, not, “What the  _ fuck _ are you doing?!” as he pulls her to one side of the room.

“Asking you the same question!” she hisses, letting him back her up against the wall. He leans on his forearm next to her head like exactly the kind of sleemo she'd expect, his body language perfect: just this side of too close without actually touching her. Not without paying. “We're supposed to be getting information, not losing money we  _ don't have _ on--”

“I'm  _ not _ losing,” he snaps, leaning in intimately close again, his breath warm under her earcone. “All three of those guys have spent the night pissing and moaning about the Empire stalking around one of their caches, and how they're going to have to pull an overnight guarding the new imports they just got  _ from Onderon. _ ”

 

Oh. 

 

“I'm running a fucking hustle and you're  _ this _ close to fucking it up,” he snarls, and runs the backs of his fingers deceptively gently down her throat, brushing over the shiny gold-tone collar and the dark purple synthsilk, though he doesn't follow the fabric all the way down to where it crisscrosses over her breasts. There’s a Sun tattooed on the inside of his forearm, Coruscanti style. Explains why they're even talking to him. “You call  _ this  _ blending in?”

She deliberately, pointedly curls the tips of her lekku over her chest up and in towards herself. It's blatantly flirtatious _ hey handsome, look at me  _ that her face, hidden behind his arm, says is sarcastic. Says it means  _ duh, obviously,  _ look  _ at me.  _ “There's bunnies all over this damn bar, and--”

“And you'll notice I haven't caught  _ one _ , all night, because I've lost the last two games and am clearly damn near broke.”

 

… okay, point, but he's not done.

 

“Worse, I couldn't afford a girl like you even if I'd been on a hot streak--”

 

That might have been a compliment?

 

“--but luckily I'm the only human here and maybe,  _ maybe  _ we can make this work if it looks like you're just trawling for a fix but you have to  _ trust me. _ ”

Ugh. Well, she's already playing into this many stupid, over-exaggerated speciest stereotypes, why not  _ Bored Bar Bunnies Crave Cock 4 _ ? Besides…

“Then  _ wrap it up _ , because if they're the night guard,  _ I  _ know where the cache is and when the Imps are going to take it.”

“Just try to pretend like you get a good hit off me, alright?” he growls, tips her chin up with his knuckles and--

 

He doesn't kiss like a Human. At least, not like a Human trying to pick up a one-time thing in a dive bar. He doesn't jam his tongue down her throat, feel up her lekku, try to overwhelm her senses and get her spun up on secondhand hormones.

He does it right: a press of parted lips against hers, the tip of his tongue soft and glancing over her bottom lip. He doesn't touch her at all, just lets her taste him, offering instead of forcing and… oh,  _ fuck. _

 

If she  _ feels  _ like springtime, he tastes like summer. Not the harsh, dry early months most planets got, but the hot and heavy start of a Rylothan monsoon season, later in the year. He felt like a thunderstorm rolling down red canyons out of clear blue sky on a hazy afternoon to flood the parched and hungry ground, the low roar enough to shake her down to her bones.

He doesn't  _ actually _ , it's--it's the fucking chemistry, Humans are so different and so alike, their bodies cranking out the same things twi'lek did but  _ more _ , and it  _ transferred _ , creating artificial intensity that pulls a softly broken sound from her chest. But if she slants her head to deepen the kiss, licks into his mouth, brings her hands up to his chest to take hold of his thickly cabled sweater… it's just because she's playing along.

And she continues to  _ play along  _ until he breaks away to take a hard, unsteady breath. 

 

“Well, I'm convinced,” he says shakily, swallowing hard. 

Probably because she wasn't pretending.  _ Shit.  _ She… She's been with Humans before, more than once, and she's never reacted like this. Assumed her friends were exaggerating the mild, pleasant buzz of arousal or contentment or excitement or--or  _ whatever.  _

 

He turns then, hooks his hand around her waist, pulling her against his side as he grins back at the other players. “Rack 'em up, we're in!”

The second Zabrak snorts, flicks the ash off his deathstick and takes a drag. There's two gold rings in his bottom lip. “Sleenshit.  _ That _ was cheating.”

“Silver tongue,” he says, sauntering back to the table with his arm around her shoulders. She stuffs her hand into his back pants pocket as they go. “Doesn't matter how I use it, right?”

 

_ Ughhhhh _ . 

 

Rings still looks cranky, so she sidles away from Jarrus and drapes her arms around  _ his  _ shoulders from behind.

“ _ That _ was only to make me stick around for the game, wasn't it?” she coos, all sugar-syrup and silk.

“You've still got his money,” she purrs, nuzzling up against one of his horns with the bridge of her nose, running her fingertips around the inside of his shirt collar until he grins and clicks at her, low in his throat. “So it's just winner take all.”

“Oh I  _ like _ her,” the Togruta says, resetting the table as both Zabrak laugh at Jarrus’ scowl. 

 

That enough trust for you, Jarrus? She just put  _ herself _ on the line. 

 

“Hope you like to look, because that's all you're getting,” he says, placing the striker and lining up the opening shot.

“That so?”

He breaks the grouping with a loud  _ crack  _ of the striker. It's a beautiful shot, with  _ two  _ striped balls thunking into their pockets. “Yep.”

 

The Togruta snorts and smiles, waits for him to take his bonus shot. He misses that one, but there's something off…

She doesn't quite pinpoint it until close to halfway through the game, wandering back and forth between the various players and fawning over each of them in turn, offering praise or sympathy where required and putting on the air of fluff-brained-pretty-and-oh-so-into-you every working girl in the galaxy knew by heart.

The Togruta keeps missing his shots. Not every one, and often by a very thin margin. A ricochet goes wrong, or an impact is too hard or not hard enough. It's enough that Kanan stays up by at least a point the whole time. 

 

And then she catches it. Just as the striker is about to hit a solid ball, Kanan picks up his beer. The gesture masks the tiniest flicker of his fingers, and the struck ball glances off wrong, with a backspin that keeps it from sinking into the pocket.

That… the  _ sneaky,  _ conniving, underhanded  _ bastard  _ is using  _ the Force _ to hustle billiards.

And he's  _ good _ too. She can see the strategy behind it: his own not-inconsiderable skill carries his game, and he fucks up his opponent's  _ just  _ enough that it looks like they've hit a streak of bad luck. At a guess, he probably did the opposite to build up the plot in the first games, 'helping’ his opponent have a good run to get their guard down without looking like he was throwing the game. 

 

His skill level never changed.  _ Theirs _ did, and that made the con work, kept suspicion down.  _ Clever. _

Right up to the last shot, as he looks up at her and sinks the black ball with a broad, roguish wink, ahead by one point.

 

“ _ Fuck _ you, Jarrus,” the Togruta says, but without any real venom, shaking his head as he pulls a stack of credits out of his pocket.

“The offer is appreciated but, thanks to you gentlemen, I have better options,” he replies, grinning as he puts his stolen chrono back on, pockets the cash. “You still need a hand with the transport tomorrow, you let me know.”

She gives a pleased little titter as he hooks his hand around her waist again and hauls her against his side, still smiling. “Just not too early, yeah?”

 

The Togruta cheerfully flips him off as they turn to leave, as she stuffs her hand back into his pocket and squeezes--purely for effect, of course--as she leans in.

“That was almost too easy…” she murmurs, all smiles as they walk.

“Ah, they're not so bad if they like you,” he purrs back, his open hand warm on the bare stretch of her lower back. “But we definitely better get out of here before they figure they can get their money back the  _ easier _ way.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another dead Imperial stuffed into a shipping crate.

 She is, unsurprisingly, completely correct, because now it's fucking _raining._ Buckets. An absolute downpour. That hadn't been a _request_ , earlier.

 

_ "What?”  _ Kanan asks, raising his voice over the torrent.

“Nothing!”

“Well, at least this will make it easier to infiltrate--wherever the hell we're going. Where are we going?”

“It will, but no one is going to slog through this on foot all the way to the wharf. We need a speeder, and I need to get out of these  _ blasted _ shoes,” she snarls, stomping off through the muck into the alley.

“The wharf?”

“Pier 31. Everyone is talking about a big push into Sun territory. Dock and shopworker complaints say there's been a series of scuffles between Stormies and Suns over a particular pier,” she explains, and leans down to rummage around under a dumpster.

“Thirty-one,” he confirms, leaning against the dumpster, more or less oblivious to the rain while she pulls a satchel of clothes out. They're soaked, but it's not as if they wouldn't be within moments of her putting them on.

“And Imperial radio chatter says there's something they want inside, that's going to be moved soon,” she says, struggling into soggy leggings. Not like she could fit her flightsuit into the bag.

“Probably our guns, if my new friends are on duty.”

“Or something else interesting!” she answers, hauling a thick pair of socks on, the wet fabric stretching and squishing unpleasantly. _ “Fuck  _ it got cold fast.”

“What’s taking so long?”

“ _ You  _ try to maneuver in six-inch heels,” she snaps, yanking her work boots on.

“Twice was more than enough,” he says lightly, but doesn't give her time to question. “Everything on this block is top of the line, tricked out custom jobs with handscanners on the bars and all the bells and whistles. This isn't the bottom of the barrel.”

There's a squelchy sort of rustling noise from the other side of the dumpster, and a heavy pile of wet wool flops over the back of her shoulders, wrapping around her head. “What in--?”

 

It's his sweater. Soaked as all the rest of everything but it will stay warm,  _ is  _ warm with his body heat.

 

“You'll need it more than I will,” he says, still on the other side of the dumpster, keeping watch and giving her privacy. “We need a speeder, but we'll have a hike anyway. Not going to get anything here.”

“Why not?”

“Nothing we can hotwire.”

 

Not necessarily a deal-breaker.

 

“Any remodeled classics?” she asks, pulling a shirt over her head, dragging the wet sleeves up her arms.

“Yeah, why?”

“What kind?”

“Couple Aratech, looks like a Blur and a late model Eclipse and… an Orelean Fury. Why?”

“What kind of specs on the Blur’s upgrade? 400 series or better?”

“How the fuck would I know?”

“Pull the right hand panel off on the steering column,” she says, muffled inside his sweater.

 

There's a sharp  _ crack  _ of static and a pained yelp as the security measure goes off, but no other sound beyond Kanan's, “Mother of  _ fuck!” _

“408,  _ perfect, _ ” she crows.

“Why the  _ shit? _ ” he demands, shaking his hand out as she comes out from behind the dumpster. “It  _ bites. _ ”

“ _ Because _ ,” she says, grinning as she shoves him out of the way and crawls under the speeder’s belly. “I don't need to hotwire it.”

 

Pull off this panel, expose that circuitboard… aurek aurek green aurek 1-2-3 blue blue and  _ fweeeep! _

 

“The Aratech 400 series is a fantastic auxiliary security system, keyed to not only the owner’s handprint but his baseline body temperature, biochemistry  _ and  _ a retinal scan. Uncrackable,” she says, recites, really, and scoots out from underneath on her butt with a grin. " But  _ very  _ simple to revert to factory floor settings.”

When she wraps her fingers around the handlebars, they glow green as the speeder roars to life and settles to the smooth, clean manka-cat purr of a well-tuned, multi-hundred-thousand-credit machine that chimes pleasantly when she saddles up.

“Shall we?”

He shakes his head with an impressed smile, slings his leg across the seat behind her. It takes him a minute to settle, and she hooks her hand under his knee to haul him forward. 

 

 _Ha._ That's why.

 

“Hi there,” she says, trying not to laugh as she looks over her shoulder. He's got his head tipped back, scowling at the sky.

“Hi. Sorry, I--”

“Oh  _ relax _ , I know you're Human.”

“What's  _ that _ supposed to mean?” he demands.

“You all get wound up at basically nothing, it's fine,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. “Was it the costume or the kiss? Either way,  _ still?  _ That's a little ridiculous.”

“It was a  _ hell  _ of a kiss, which we're going to discuss later, but if you want an honest answer, it's neither,” he answers, somewhat reluctantly. The man can and will flirt with anything that breathes, especially her, but apparently anything genuine made him incredibly flustered. “I've apparently discovered a kink for standing in the rain getting lectured at about classic speeders by a terrifyingly competent woman who happens to be wearing my clothes.”

 

Oh.

 

“That's very specific.”

“Probably why I haven't encountered it before,” he says, and reaches past her to grab the auxiliary handlebars along the center column. On the one hand, he avoids wrapping his arms around her in that cliche, but instead he's leaning against her back, his arms framing her ribs. “Rain’s not getting any lighter.”

Right, shit. She needs to  _ drive  _ and not think about the very attractive, very warm person whose breath on the back of her neck is giving her tiny, tantalizing little reminders of that  _ bloody _ kiss and introducing the idea of his mouth on other parts of her body.

Preferably, everywhere.

 

_ Damn it. _

 

The  _ Blur _ lives up to its overpriced name, letting them zip through the dark, rain-shrouded streets in relative silence and anonymity. It has enough of windscreen that if she leans forward she can get out of most of the storm, Kanan warm and solid against her back. He had made a point of tucking her lekku between them, arguably to keep them from whipping around his head, with the side effect of trapping them against the heat of his body. It would be nice, except the saturation of his thin undershirt means she might as well be pressed against his bare skin. Which she is something she is having more and more difficulty convincing herself she doesn't want. 

 

She  _ doesn't  _ want to sleep with her employee/copilot/handyman/bruiser. She doesn't want to sleep with a drifter, a drunken scoundrel, a man running from the world. From himself.

 

But her  _ partner?  _ The man who--currently literally--had her back in all their endeavors, trusted her with his life, his deadly secrets, far more than she trusted him? The man who had saved her life more than once, been saved  _ by _ her in turn physically and  _ mentally _ by his own quiet, unprompted but reluctant admission? The man who--through a quirk of biochemical compatibility--was all but guaranteed to be a good lay, a  _ spectacular  _ one if he knew what he was doing? 

 

That was a different question entirely.

 

“We should ditch the bike,” he says, the bridge of his nose tucked under her lek so he can speak against her cone. If her hands tighten down sharply on the throttle in response, hopefully he believes it's just to adjust their speed down. “Shipping crates up on the north end? Maybe one's unlocked.”

 

She nods and turns off down the nearest pier--for some reason the pier next to 31 is Pier 17, which is next to Pier 12--letting the bike drift silently between the towers of crates. One of them is even partially open. He waves her down as he clambers off the speeder, looking up to the top of the crates. A flash of lightning and then--okay then, he jumps up to the top of the tower, bouncing between the columns with the rolling thunder masking the thunk of his boots on durasteel before he can catch the top of one shipping crate, hauling himself up and over the top. He only nearly slips once.

She creeps around the side of the crates while gets the bird’s eye view. It's too dark and thick with rain to see anything clearly, but the number of active lights on the pier, the huge blocky transport vehicles, the obvious patterns of weaving searchlights set about head-height…  _ shit.  _

 

Kanan thuds down next to her in a low crouch, easily a ten meter drop. “Bad news.”

“Empire’s already here?”

“Empire's already here.”

“ _ Shit. _ ”

“We can still get in, it's just… more than a few dubiously alert gangsters, now.”

“How much more?” she asks, watching the sky for another burst of lightning, both of them ready to pull the shipping crate open under the next masking roar of thunder.

“Two transports, which means it's probably more than just our guns in there.”

“That could be a bonus.”

“It also means more troops. Two on each door, but only one patrol.”

“Pier’s narrow, more would be overkill,” she reasons, pushing the speeder into the mostly-empty crate. (Nothing they can use, it's all farming equipment meant for sale here on Sullust.) 

 

Thus begins the long, tedious process of infiltration:

Creeping between pylons and crates and support beams, ducking in and out of shadows, occasionally going up over the top of the huge crates. As they get closer, the situation clears.

Standard procedure. Pairs of troopers, Stormies and scouts, on all the doors, all of them with the bored-but-alert posture of experienced guards, making sure no one sneaks in the back while the majority are occupied with the open loading bay. They all acknowledge the patrol as it goes by.

 

Kanan drums his fingers on the durasteel as they watch, belly down on a crate. “Looks like they've already loaded up one of the transports. Think we can snag it?”

“Maybe. Problem is getting close enough.”

He grunts.

“I could play Stormie, but they're all running in twos. Lone one would get questions.”

“We'll put out a Help Wanted notice. 'Seeking: Imperial Impersonation Expert, must be short enough to wear scout  _ or  _ Stormie armor,’” she offers sarcastically.

“Bring Your Own Bucket,” he snickers, and she can't help but join him before she spots an irregularity in the wall panels.

“Jackpot. Side door, point six.”

“No guards. Has to be a reason.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Nope,” he answers lightly, pushes up on his hands and drops backwards off the crate.

 

It's not until she's done the same, in the split second interval between “crate” and “cold, hard ground” that she realizes that she implicitly trusted him to catch her.

In the next, he does, and automatically sets her on her feet like he hadn't thought about it either. He just… did it. 

 

The sightlines are absolute garbage around the sealed doorway, like it's been forgotten in favor of “We never use this door and we have absolutely no extra space in this building, just put it over there.” They're able to get right up to it with only minimal ducking-and-weaving between shadows. Unfortunately…

“ _ Shit.  _ It's scan-locked from the inside, wired to an alarm. They don't  _ need  _ guards.”

Kanan runs his hands down the seam,  _ tch _ ’s through his teeth. “Mag-sealed too. I couldn't cut through it even if I wanted to.”

“ _ Cut _ through?” 

 

He taps the hook on his belt where a certain weapon  _ could  _ possibly hang, if he was crazy enough to carry it. Interesting option.

 

“I'd rather blast it open, honestly. Just as reckless.”

“Do I  _ look  _ like a demolitions expert?”

“No, but-- _ shit _ , hide!” she snaps, grabbing him by the shoulder and hauling him back down behind a stack of boxes as the door unlatches.

“Oh you are  _ shitting _ me, we can't be this lucky,” he breathes, as someone in Imperial dress greys steps out, puts a chock under the door to hold it open and rummages in his breast pocket for a lighter and a packet of cigarettes.

“Bet he's heard those will be the death of him,” she murmurs, and Kanan grins wickedly. 

 

He eases up behind the officer, quiet and slow, and lunges, knocking the lit cigarette away into the darkness as he slaps one hand over his mouth and the other around his head.

The rain covers the following dull, wet  _ crunch _ of broken cartilage, and she jumps up to help him keep the body off the ground. Can't get the uniform all wet and muddy, after all.

 

Somehow the dead Imperial ends up being just as much a pain in the ass as a live one, stripping him. Probably because he's actually as tall as Kanan, which is convenient, but…

“One problem,” she says, and reaches up to tug on his goatee. “You're not exactly regulation.”

“Officers get a little more leeway,” he says, and peels his wet shirt up and over his head. “I can make it work.”

 

She doesn't say anything, just looks at him. 

 

“I can make it work,” he says, and it sounds like a promise. 

 

_ You have to trust me. _

 

“I hope so,” she says fervently, and takes a deep breath. “I’ll move on the transports, secure one for us. You see what we can come up with as far as loading it.”

He nods, and pauses halfway through undressing, bent over to pull his boots off. “You, ah… Going to stay for the whole show or get a move on?” 

 

“I--Wh--Don’t flatter yourself,” she splutters, scowling.

 

He shrugs and starts unbuckling his belt, unnecessarily pulling it through the loops instead of just shucking his pants. 

 

… so he can snap the end of it like a whip with a loud  _ crack  _ of wet letheris.

 

_ “Are you insane?”  _ she hisses, mentally thanking every aspect of the Goddess she can think of for another eerily convenient roar of thunder.

“Does anyone ever say yes to that?” he asks, slinging his belt around the back of his neck and grabbing onto the ends over his chest with a casual ease that makes part of her wonder if he  _ hasn't _ taken his clothes off for money.

“You’re insane.”

“Probably!”

“I'm going to go get the transport.”

“Good idea.”

“That shit-eating grin is probably going to be a little suspicious, might want to take care of that, too,” she grumbles, and grabs the ex-Imperial by the ankles, hauling him back out the door. There is a highly convenient surplus of variously sized shipping crates and boxes to stuff him into.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "101 Ways This Whole Thing Can Go To Shit" and she's not entirely sure which "thing" she's worried about.

 

_ Are you going to stay for the whole show~?  _

 

_ Honestly. _ Who the fuck does he think he's kidding? Maybe she should have! Stayed and  _ critiqued!  _ Put your damned back into it, amateur. Call that a bodyroll? Can't just pelvic thrust your way through this, saber-swinger, make it  _ interesting _ .  _ Ha!  _ Maybe she  _ will _ , next time. Bounce some credit chips off his butt.

Next time he… takes his clothes off in front of her. Fucking.  _ Fuck _ . Great. Just great. Now she has to admit to herself that she wants to see him naked.  _ Fuck. _

Oh of course there's no convenient thunder to cover the vigorous application of forehead-to-crate. Why  _ would  _ there be?

Easy enough to fix. Go over there, buckethead. Chase the rock, it was definitely the source of the thunking noise. Yes, it  _ was  _ a “rat or something”! The rare and elusive Two-Tailed Green Sullustan Womp Rat.  Who’s a good boy? Who's the Empire's dumbest buckethead? It's  _ you!  _ Idiot. 

 

Moving on.

 

It's not like she hasn't seen him naked  _ before _ .

Well, not  _ naked  _ but she's lived with the guy for cycles and there's one refresher and one laundry unit on the Ghost. 

  * Her towels aren't meant for someone who's nearly 60% legs and fuzzy.
    * They're small and thin because it saves _space._
  * Despite the fact that he, again, _boils himself in the refresher_ , apparently she keeps the atmospherics too hot and humid for Humans so shirts tended to be cut off or cut out or gone entirely as soon as he confirmed she didn't mind.
    * 30C is _well_ within Human standards, and on the cooler side for Ryloth, quit whining.



And incidents like this morning meant she's seen just about all of him. There's a lot to see.

 

And just  _ admit it _ , Syndulla, it's a good view.

 

So’s the vantage point from this side of the--what is this, more farming equipment? What was the Black Sun  _ into  _ on Sullust? Have they gotten directly into drug  _ production _ as well as smuggling? The Hutts have got to  _ love _ that. She can see the front of the transport, the driver--with an enlisted officer’s pauldron, no surprise there--through the window. He's got the cushy job, keeping the engine running while his men haul freight.

Is there a better way to hijack a transport? Probably. Does she have a bit of misdirected aggression and frustration to work out? Probably. Will this be more satisfying?  _ Absolutely. _

He's not even paying attention enough to check his perimeter in the what--twelve minutes?--it takes for her to get right up on the transport hatch. 

 

_ knock knock _

 

_ Goddess _ he actually opened the hatch. It's even easier to jam the snub nose of her blaster under the rim of his helmet and blow his brain out this way than if he'd tried to look out the window.

And the small caliber means his bucket is intact when she shoves him back into the transport, props him up like he's still on watch--as much as he had been--and crawl into the transport herself, sprawled across the bench seat and his lap, out of sight. She-- _ seriously?  _ He was… He was playing  _ Droid Equine Rampage II  _ on his datapad the whole time?  _ Seriously? _

Pff, call  _ that _ a high score?

 

Now for the worst part: the Hurry Up and Wait, sitting and stewing in her own thoughts.

Those thoughts are usually things like, 

“101 Ways This Whole Thing Can Go To Shit.”

“101 More Ways This Whole Thing Can Go To Shit, Specifically With Explosions.”

“101 More Ways This Whole Thing Can Go To Shit, Featuring: All The People You Can Betray Despite All Your Precautions.” 

 

That last one is the loudest right now, with a bunch of flashing blue light and the  _ vrrrm  _ of an activating lightsaber--not his, he's never even taken it out of the drawer under his bunk, but she was on Ryloth. She was so small, and it was distant, but she remembers--and a sleepy smile over a caf mug.

That's always been her concern, y’see. That's why she never let herself get close to anyone: Everyone can break, but no one can give up information they don't have. It kept her safe and it kept her co-conspirators safe.

He knows nothing about her.

 

_ Except how you take your caf, your eggs, sort your laundry, your favorite music, favorite food, and what kind of underwear you prefer… that sort of thing.  _

 

She scowls witheringly up at the Stormie for lack of ability to glare at the nagging voice in her head

He knows nothing. He can't give her up. 

 

_ Which effectively shot down the main reason not to sleep with him. _

 

… to be fair that one had been dead and buried since Gorse. Since he held a crumbling starship deck off her with the force of his will and then smiled sheepishly. No scrap of information, no clues to her real agenda he could  _ possibly  _ have discovered compared to  _ that.  _ To the lightsaber under his bunk.

Not that she'd  _ wanted  _ to sleep with him on Gorse. Again, “drunken scoundrel” wasn't her type and she had more important shit to do like  _ make sure the whole damned moon didn't explode. _

 

_ Still. You've been thinking about it for a while, Syndulla. Before he set your lekku on fire by making out with you in a seedy, shithole of a bar to maintain his cover.  _

 

Well  _ yes,  _ because the drifter she picked up on Gorse cleaned up his act quickly and cleaned it up  _ good _ . He was a crack shot, a team player with enough initiative and strategic intelligence to work on his own and adapt when needed, and he came with his own string of shady, underhanded contacts and techniques with which to escape the Empire's notice while simultaneously ruining the day of everyone in the nearest Imperial Outpost.

 

_ And he's pretty. _

 

She manages not to groan aloud, pulls a lek over her face. Yes, damn it all, he's  _ gorgeous _ . 

 

As it turns out, her  _ thing _ for Humans wasn't just a phase  _ (Dad)  _ but he's a good-looking specimen regardless and watching him do his… whatever, warmup stretch routine this morning definitely wasn't the first time she's caught herself staring. And he's made it  _ very  _ obvious ever since they bloody well  _ met  _ that he's interested.

But he hadn't pushed, not once. Not a single leer or physical advance, just open, honest admiration for her skills as much as her looks and his terrible lines were more often than not completely tongue-in-cheek, timed to make her laugh. He flirted like he kissed: an offer, not an imposition, and the occasional nonintrusive reminder that the offer was always open, should she say the word.

He was kind and intelligent and reliable and incredibly attractive even without the benefit of his biochemistry hitting like a runaway freighter and she hasn't gotten laid in  _ months  _ anyway and

 

_ knock knock-knock _

 

And it looks like the show is on. That's not their knock-code, so it's someone else.

She elbows the dead Stormie in the chest so he leans over towards the window, and scoots around until she can reach the latch. If need be, she can shove the hatch open into the new guy’s face and stun him long enough to shoot him, too.

“Change of plans per  _ Captain  _ Hirani out of Cresh base, sir,” an irritated voice shouts over the rain, and she nearly chokes on her tongue stifling a laugh.

 

_ Captain Sexy?!  _

 

It was a  _ reasonably  _ plausible Human name, and the formal translation of the Ryl slang was actually  _ “exceedingly beautiful”  _ but there is no way in any hell that the “Captain” was anyone but Kanan. This was  _ precisely  _ his style: clever wordplay and flirtation combined into a coded message the Stormie didn't know he was delivering:  _ we're in business. _

If she didn't just blow it. 

 

Oh good, he took the snort as derision from her dead Stormie. 

 

“I know, right? Came all the way down here to get in some kind of dick-measuring contest with Captain Niels over  _ transcription errors in the resupply manifests _ ,” the voice continues, scathingly picking up a poor mimicry of Kanan's drawl. “So now we've got to rearrange the shipments, and pack a bunch more crap in here so Captain 'Daddy’s Outer Rim Slumlord Money Bought My Officer's Commission Because There's No Fucking Way I'm Coruscanti’ will stop bitching.”

A floppy, sloppy salute with a dead guy’s arm conveniently looks like more sarcasm, and the security cam let her watch the Trooper fuck off the way he came after she opens the loading hatch.  _ Perfect. _

 

… too perfect. Something is going to go horribly wrong any second now.

 

The loading hatch is sticky, doesn't open completely when she tells it to, but even this is met with only a moderate amount of grumbling from the  _ half dozen _ Stormtroopers who collectively force the jammed hatch open and start loading crates inside. 

 

… any second now…

 

That's a full  _ case  _ of Czerka 580 OI repulsor cannons holy  _ shit _ that's a lot of firepower. 

 

… seriously, any second…

 

And there's the DC15s. 

 

…  _ hells  _ she almost  _ wants _ something to do wrong so she can respond. Obviously they've had jobs that have gone perfectly well, and jobs that have gone horribly awry but this is  _ just  _ the perfect combination of both to drive her  _ right  _ up the wall.

She continues to fret right up until the Stormies start fighting with the hatch again, trying to haul it down over their fantastic, unexpected bonus.

That's about when the swoop bikes make their first strafing run and things, predictably, go right to shit.

 

Because the Black Sun has apparently returned to retake their warehouse with an explosive vengeance and Kanan is pounding on the side of the transport shouting  _ go go go  _ as the second wave comes in.

 

And then--

“Wait, hang on--”

_ “What?!”  _

“No, not  _ you! _ Get moving, I'll catch up!”

“You'll  _ what?!” _

He's insane. This is insane. That's the second explosion in as many minutes. 

 

But she's trusted him this far.

 

So she rips open the transport hatch, rolls into a sitting position and boots the dead Stormie outside so she can take the wheel. If she runs over a few more Stormtroopers while peeling out of the loading bay onto the dock, it'll only help.

The enormous  _ thunk  _ on the roof of the transport scares the absolute hell out of her at first, but it's followed by more, lighter ones. Footsteps. An air drop? When did they get  _ air support?! _ Doesn't matter. She's more than ready to deal with the issue, driving onehanded and jamming the snubbed nose of her blaster to the ceiling, rapid-firing up through the roof of the cab. 

 

“It's  _ me!”  _ Kanan snarls, glaring at her upside down through the windscreen.

“How the  _ shit?!”  _ How the shit did he get  _ on top of a moving transport?!  _ How fast  _ is  _ he?

“Let me in!”

 

She triggers the passenger side window and he dives in, feet first and clinging to the doorframe. He--

Bright fucking Goddess he's  _ wearing his coat _ over his stolen uniform. 

 

“That's--!”

“Yep!” 

 

He's smiling so widely the top of his head might actually fall off.

 

“How in--?!” She can't even finish the question.

“ _ Right?!  _ What are the odds? Maybe you  _ are _ lucky!”

"You are  _ unbelievable!” _ she snaps, almost screams. It's not a compliment, but he's still grinning as they pull off the dock into one of their many,  _ many  _ planned escape routes.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time they make it to the first checkpoint--another warehouse, this one owned by some local granary exporter and guarded only by a handful of security cameras and mouse droids--she's quite warm and nearly dry, though the whole cab smells like wet tauntaun. The idea was to stay here for a short while before they make the run for the Ghost, hiding in plain sight: parked between two other Imperial transports until Pier 31 stops lighting up with blasterfire and explosions but _before_ the real reinforcements from Cresh base show up.

With Kanan in uniform, and her out of sight, they won't be stopped heading to the space station. Just a perfectly ordinary Imperial making a perfectly ordinary delivery. 

 

But something else has been bothering her.

 

“Is it just me, or did those particular Stormtroopers seem…”

“Sloppy? Disorganized? Couldn't hit the broadside of a bantha?” Kanan drawls, pulling the tie out of his hair to shake the damp locks loose with his fingers. It falls just past his shoulders, choppy and ragged like he cuts it with a knife and no mirror and needs to do it again soon.

“I was going to say 'unusually dim’ but yes, all of that, too.”

 

He nods, looking… oddly, grimly pleased. “Empire's running out of clones.”

 

New recruits or conscripts  _ would  _ explain the sudden drop in overall quality of soldiers, but... “Don't tell me you can  _ feel  _ the difference between Stormies, too,” she says, half teasing, half unnerved. The Jedi thing was a lot to take in, sometimes, and she was still getting used to it as much as he was, but he shakes his head.

 

“Haven't tried and don't want to,” he says, raking his hand through his hair. He only does that when his hair is down, and then only rarely, only when he's nervous.

 

… or when he's lying.

 

“But it's still pretty obvious,” he continues, shrugging. “Like I said: sloppy, disorganized, couldn't hit the broadside of a bantha. The new recruits don't have  _ shit _ on the old guard.”

“And here I thought you hated clones,” she says, leaning more towards teasing as she starts the transport again. She scoots sideways and clambers over him, he slides out of his coat and under her to take the wheel.

 

It's not a proper Imperial Officer’s fancy double-breasted wool thing with shiny buttons, but it will do in a pinch to hide under and the letheris is dull, dark and scuffed enough to pass a casual glance and therefore enough for her to hide under if she folds herself into the footwell between the seat and dash.

 

“No, I'm just about the only one left who knows how  _ efficient _ they really are, when they want to be,” Kanan answers bitterly, backing out onto the main road. 

 

She winces and ducks under his coat. It smells  _ very _ strongly of unwashed Human and alcohol and several kinds of smoke, but even after Goddess only knew how long with stars only knew whom, it also still smells like him, and by extension, her soap.

 

“I don’t hate them, but I've been looking forward to this for a  _ long _ time,” he says slowly, quietly, and she's not quite sure if he's talking to her. He doesn't appear to want a response, just drives with his knee under the wheel while he ties his hair back up, stuffs his ponytail inside his hat.

“What do you mean?” she asks anyway.

“The Empire probably didn't think they'd need their  _ Grand Army _ this long. Didn't plan ahead,” he says, staring fixedly at the road. “Commission the perfect soldiers, make them  _ heroes.  _ Use  them to wipe out the  _ one _ organized thing that stands in your way and the rest of the Galaxy will fall in line, right?”

 

She doesn't say anything. It was a little different on Ryloth, raised by Cham Syndulla, who only saw the then-Republic occupation as another form of tyranny and turned out to be right.

It didn't mean she had forgotten a time when white helmets meant  _ safety _ .

 

“Except that last part didn't happen, and now their Grand Army is burning out faster than they can take control.”

“Lucky for us,” she offers carefully, neutrally. 

“Yep,” he answers, still uncharacteristically grim. 

 

Now is probably not the time to ask him about it. It may  _ never  _ be the time to ask about it. He may never tell her. She's not sure she wants to know more than she's already inferred from the simple math of who and what he is: a rogue Jedi, who had been a  _ child _ when the Jedi were wiped out. Who had watched it happen and barely survived then, was only barely scraping by now. Was slowly,  _ so  _ slowly, but steadily dragging himself out of the void his broken world had left behind.

...was getting stopped at the spaceport gates by the guards.  _ Why?! _ She'd disabled the tracer, their clearance codes were still valid, radio chatter still hadn't reported their transport missing in the clusterfuck and she’d changed their ident signal  _ anyway  _ and--

 

“Random inspection, sir. Open the hatch?”

 

_ Shit. _ Since when does the Empire do spontaneity?! 

 

“You don't need to inspect this transport,” Kanan says. He sounds… different. His voice resonates strangely through her chest, pulling at… something. It's that same compelling, magnetic sensation she got earlier this morning, when he went up on one hand and held the pose like a star.

“I… I don't need to inspect this transport.”

 

Goddess bless.

_ I can make it work _ , he said.

 

“Did you just--”

“Don't jinx it,” he says, staring fixedly ahead into the spacestation.

_ “You just--” _

_ “Don't jinx it,”  _ he repeats, and glances down long enough for her to realize that he won't look at her because he's trying to keep that face-breaking, shit-eating grin off his face long enough to get them past the various checkpoints and guards. 

 

She manages to hold it in until they get to the Ghost in its rented port, and fully intends to  _ flip the hell out  _ at him because  _ what the shit you said you can't do that and _ \--

Except there's an familiar, ratcheting metallic groan ahead. Normally it's comforting, the sound of the Ghost's aft cannons lining up a target, but not when the target is her and a stolen transport full of high-grade munitions. 

 

“Oh  _ shit--” _ Kanan starts, instinctively pushing back in the driver’s seat, and pushing  _ her _ back down under the dash with a protective hand on the back of her head--thank fuck he's wearing the Imperial's gloves now--but none of her proximity alarms have been tripped, none of the Ghost's security protocols are engaged and Chopper hasn't commed her in a screaming panic so that means this  _ is  _ Chopper. 

She pops up out from under the dash, leaning over Kanan so Chopper can see her through the windscreen. “It's  _ us,  _ Chop! Stand down!”

Another metallic whirr, the smaller caliber, short range guns this time, and a laser sight flickers to life over Kanan's chest.

 

“What the-- _ fuck you,  _ you lopsided scrap heap, I haven't done  _ shit _ \--” Kanan yells, whipping his hat off so his hair falls down again, and kicking the transport hatch open to stomp out with his arms out in a distinct  _ fucking try me, asshole _ posture.

 

The disgruntled whirring, booping and rumbling he gets in response is impossibly loud--bright Goddess he wired himself into the intercom  _ specifically  _ to yell at Kanan.

 

“ _ I don't understand binary you dickless, outdated trash compactor _ \--” Kanan's shouting back, fighting with the back hatch of the transport, and it's a good thing he doesn't, given  _ what  _ Chopper is yelling. 

 

Apparently Chopper was  _ concerned _ that there were less security-oriented reasons for her to be under the dash with Kanan's hand on the back of her head, and Chopper  _ strongly  _ disapproved.

Of course, she can't do much to defend herself (and, by extension, Kanan, who she doesn't particularly feel like defending after what he said to Chopper because  _ rude!)  _ without letting on what was said beyond things like “He was not!” and “I most  _ certainly _ did not!” and “Excuse  _ you?!” _

 

And  _ now _ Chopper is complaining--again--about her going out in public in “ _ that _ outfit” and  _ what _ would her father say and--

The intercom clicks off but the angry warbling continues as the Ghost's loading hatch opens, Chopper standing in the doorway, waving both manipulators for emphasis as he continues to rave about her moral failings and Kanan's various flaws and none which he has  _ any  _ right to argue over because he doesn't give a  _ shit _ about xenosexuality or who she does or doesn't fuck, he's just overprotective and  _ Kanan you are not helping with your suggestions of where he should shove and/or weld those manipulators  _ and--

 

“ _ Everyone shut up and load the damn cargo!” _

 

It's amazing how effective raising your voice is when you save it for special occasions.

 

At the very least, they manage to get the cargo loaded with the arguing reduced to Kanan and Chopper sniping at each other. She'll count it as a win as long as Chopper hasn't deployed his taser and Kanan hasn't punted him across the cargo bay (he never has, knows better than to try, but she doesn't need to be a mind reader to know that he  _ really  _ wants to.)

They even manage to clear the hangar, the spaceport and make it into orbital space with something like twenty minutes to spare on their clearance codes.

That, unfortunately, is something the Empire is getting better at. Technology was advancing at a breakneck pace, and while she was a good slicer and Chopper was, naturally, better, both of them were too easily identified in the homogeneously Human Empire and its newfangled astromechs.

Kanan's new trick was a game-changer, but still…

 

“So are we out of jinx range now?”

 

He's dozing in the copilot’s chair, hands behind his head, jaunty little stupid hat pulled down over his eyes and feet propped up on the console. Muddy boots off, he knows better by now, but close by so that he can pull them on in a hurry if he needs to man the guns. Which, come to think of it, isn't entirely necessary, he's been up there barefoot before.

… and less, that time they broke out of hyperspace right into a skirmish between locals above Shili and the Empire. They’d taken what  _ she  _ considered a hard hit (a graze along the top starboard paneling she couldn't dodge in time) while he'd been sleeping, which meant he'd gone skidding across the center hallway in nothing but the previous day's unfastened pants to throw himself into the pod and take out the TIEs riding up their ass. He'd also immediately gone back to bed afterwards, a soldier’s ability to fall asleep at any second ingrained in him since childhood.

… that was one of the instances that she had caught herself staring. Had seen the scars that went right through him onto his back and the dimples in his tailbone for the first time.

Ugh. She certainly has a one-track mind today, doesn't she?

He's smiling under the hat though. 

 

“Probably,” he says.

“Good, because  _ what the hell, Kanan?!  _ I thought you couldn't do that!”

He grins sheepishly, tipping the brim of his hat up. “Yeah, me either.”

 

Wait.

 

“What?”

“Never pulled it off before, never learned how.”

_ “What?!” _

 

He. He didn't. He gambled on it. He'd  _ never pulled it off _ and he gambled on it.

She's not sure if she's going to kiss him or kill him or both and even then the order is anyone's guess.

… He might get a pass because the implications of  _ never learned how _ are incredibly sad. She can settle for punching him in the shoulder.  _ Hard. _

 

“You  _ asshole!  _ You didn't know it would work?!” she snarls over his pained yelp. 

“I was pretty sure it would!” he argues defensively, rubbing his arm. “It's a lot easier when you're telling someone something they want to hear, or making them do something they already want to do!”

 

Oh.

 

“Like the gate guard?”

He nods. “Would  _ you  _ want to get out in the rain and inspect what looks like  _ yet another _ perfectly ordinary truck?”

“What about the  _ dozens  _ of Stormies back at the base?”

“Chain of Command did half the work for me. Walk and talk like you're the toughest, smartest motherfucker in the room and most people will leave you alone,” he explains, and taps the red-and-blue rank insignia on his chest. “Do it with _Official Sanction_ and a couple underlings to back you and it's a cakewalk.”

“So the--” she twiddles her fingers “--is really just an extra boost in what, charisma?”

“It's a little more than that, but yeah,” he says, shrugging as he settles back in what is rapidly becoming  _ his  _ chair. “Not sure if I want to rely on it or build plans around it just yet. I'm no  _ Negotiator _ but it's an option now, I'm guess?”

“'Negotiator’? That was… one of the famous ones in the Clone Wars, wasn't it?” she asks carefully. She's not sure how much she wants to know, but can't resist asking. The Jedi had been mysterious, secretive and powerful. Who  _ wouldn't _ be curious?

“Kenobi,” he says, and looks at her sideways from under his hat with a sly smile. “Here's a secret for you: that was a  _ huge  _ inside joke.”

“Jedi h- _ had  _ inside jokes?”

He snorts. “Absolutely. Apparently the only  _ negotiating  _ Master Kenobi ever did was the  _ aggressive _ kind, and then only when he couldn't mindfuck his way out of the situation.”

His sly smile turns to an outright evil grin. “And depending on which rumors you believe, he didn't always rely on  _ mind _ -fucking. Like, say,  _ negotiations  _ involving the Duchess of Mandalore.”

“I thought Jedi were supposed to be celibate?”

 

Another snort, this one turning into a laugh. “Hera, please. What's long, hot and easy to turn on?”

_ “No.” _

_ “Yep. _ Carved into a windowsill in the Coruscanti Temple with someone's initials and a bunch of other shit. That joke  _ originated  _ in the Temple at least two thousand years ago.”

 

It's strange to see him smiling while talking about his past. “Relationships fall under  _ attachments _ , so they were generally discouraged and I was like,  _ twelve _ but you try and tell a Togruta to meditate her first heat away in a temple full of other hormonal teenagers, and  _ all _ Miraluka are Force-sensitive. What, they just, can't have kids now? That's insane, especially when there's historically famous Grand-Masters with children.”

“Huh.” That… changes a lot of things.

“Again, twelve, so I wasn't terribly interested beyond a couple devastatingly embarrassing puppy-crushes that I  _ do not _ want to talk about but I think it was more about politics and putting the Order first than actual celibacy.”

 

She's about to ask something else, not entirely sure what, maybe just to ask him to keep talking, this seems to be good for him. But he blinks, rubs at the bridge of his nose like it hurt. 

 

“And I apparently need to work on shielding, if that was you.”

“If  _ what  _ was me?” 

He taps his temple again. “Tension headache. Felt like… Knew someone who had the  _ worst _ pollen allergies. Springtime was absolute hell, apparently. Felt like how she described that, stopped when you stopped worrying about... whatever you were worried about.”

“Sorry? I guess?” How the hell is she supposed to respond to that? 

“I’d say 'don't worry about it’ but hey, maybe it's good practice,” he says, shrugging. 

“So what, you're going to practice ignoring me while I'm upset?”

“What?  _ No _ , I just… I figured you'd rather land or get into a safe orbit before we talk about how I knew you weren't faking, earlier.”

 

Oh.  _ Shit. _

 

He winces. “Yep, that's you.”

 

He pulls his hat back over his face and settles more thoroughly in his chair. “Wake me when we get there?”

 

Guess he's going to get his  _ practice _ after all.

 

_ Shit. _

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mind the rating change... And the tag change :3

At first, it makes her fret more. A recursive, panicked-squeaky feedback loop of  _ he knows what I'm thinking he knows what I felt he knows everything he knows he knows he knows  _ tumbling over and over in her head as she scans for a safezone. Masking the Ghost's signature for reentry is automatic, a habit. She doesn't need to think about it, or any of the other dozens of tasks and procedures to finish a job, a supply run, an extraction.

She kind of wishes she did, maybe then her damn lekku would untwist. 

But he stays calm.

Grows calmer, his breathing becoming slow and deep and steady, and it stays that way when they make groundfall out in the middle of nowhere, a harvest-loading airstrip abandoned for the fallow season. 

 

It… helps, somehow. 

 

And it fits his… everything. If he was right, this morning, that he's been able to sense her for some time, he probably  _ already  _ knew that she wanted to--wanted  _ him _ , and it hadn't changed anything.  So he will wait for her to be comfortable, feel safe, and let her make the first move. Follow her lead.

So she should probably stop  _ dithering _ and lead, because

“It doesn't change anything,” she says, sharp and sudden. “The way I reacted to you.” 

 

She's not sure why she feels the need to push him back when he's never pushed at all and isn't pushing now, but years of cultural stereotyping is hanging over her head and she  _ hates _ it. Especially when she's already decided to sleep with him.

When the fuck did she decide she was going to sleep with him?!

He tips his hat back immediately to stare at her, a little incredulously. Oh,  _ great.  _ Fucking figures, she  _ knew  _ it--

“I fucking well hope not,” he says, and almost sounds offended. 

 

Wait, what?

 

He sighs. “Hera, I… If we… I…  _ shit.  _ Fucking…” he trails off, steels himself and starts again.

“Look if I just wanted to get off, I've got plenty of downtime and a good holonet connection,” he says roughly, pulls open the crisp, tight collar of his stolen uniform jacket like it's choking him. “So if this… if anything between us is going anywhere, if we end up in bed together or--shit if you just want to  _ kiss  _ me again--I want it to be because you want  _ me,  _ not because I get you high.”

 

Oh yeah, her 'drifter' is not going  _ anywhere _ . 

 

He looks so serious. It's an unusual expression on him, but again it… suits him, somehow.

Also gives her a chance to surprise  _ him  _ for once in this chaotic disaster of an unexpected success. 

“You're really bad at the whole  _ no attachments _ thing, aren't you,  _ Captain Hirani?”  _ she asks, propping her elbow on the back of her chair and her cheek on her fist.

He grins, and deftly avoids answering the question at all with, “I thought you'd like that.”

“It's ridiculous and I almost blew the whole job by laughing in the guard’s face.”

“Yeah, you're probably right, it suits you better anyway.” 

 

It. He. That.  _ What?! _

Oh look it's that kiss-me-or-kill-me smile again.

 

“That… That was the most insanely convoluted route to a pickup line I have ever experienced,” she manages, staring at him, which only makes him more smug. “I'm actually impressed.”

“You should be,” he says, mimicking her posture. “These are hand-crafted pickups, I put  _ effort _ into this shit. I get excellent return-on-investment, too.”

“And yet you hadn't catch  _ one  _ bunny all night,” she teases, and immediately regrets it as he cocks a knowing eyebrow, his smile going sly again.

“Didn't I?” he drawls, looking her up and down. “From where I'm sitting, she took me home and she's wearing my shirt.”

 

When did this turn into a game? When did she start playing? Why is the first thing out of her mouth, “Mhn, but  _ 'Hey baby, come here often? _ ’ isn't going to work on me. It's a given, seeing as I live here.”?

Bright stars no wonder he always loses at pazaak, he has  _ no  _ face for it. She can see the calculations in his clear blue-green eyes, rolling the line, the implications and the possibilities over in his head.

At face value, it's a simple fact. She lives here, of course she “comes here” in that she's presently in this place.

But the follow-up to the line  _ as a line _ is, of course,  _ Do you want to?  _ and turns the word  _ come _ into something else entirely. Turns it sexual. 

 

It throws him a bit, that she's flirting back at him. That instead of rolling her eyes, laughing at him, dismissing it as a joke or an amusing annoyance… she's playing along. 

 

Hell, she's intensifying the game.

Yes, she  _ does  _ come here. Often.

And her steady, unbroken eye contact, her own slow, sly smile says  _ Maybe even while you're onboard,  _ or  _ Maybe even right here, in the pilot’s chair. _

 

He knows a little Ryl, he knows enough lekku sign to interpret a bit more than the basics. He might know enough that he'll recognize the movement of her delicate third eyelid--a slow, deliberate blink--as the additional flirtation it is. More or less  _ you're pretty and I want to see you better.  _

 

_ That _ might even say,  _ Maybe I think about you. _

 

It throws him, but only for a moment because by now, he knows her. Knows that when she has weighed all the odds, all the pros and cons, and made her plans… she commits to them wholeheartedly. 

 

And now he's probably wondering what her plan is for  _ him _ .

But then again, half the time he doesn't know all the details on her plans. He trusts her judgement enough to just dive in, even when she's making it up as she goes… like now. 

 

“Maybe I'll hit that hot streak after all,” he says, leaning back in his chair in such a way that it swivels towards her. 

“Haven't you gambled enough for one night?” she asks, but stands up as she does, turns the short two steps to his chair into a hip-swaying prowl before she leans down, braces her hands on the armrests.

Even if he couldn't read lek-sign, the gesture from the one hanging over her shoulder is obvious: a repeating come-hither curl. 

 

“Is it really gambling if I know the odds are in my favor?” he says, and reaches up to let the tip of her talkative lek wrap loosely around two of his fingers. Yep, he knows that one, and even if the tips are less receptive, she still gets an echo of that rolling-storm sensation crackling up her lek and down her spine. 

She swats his hand away. “You know the odds when you  _ cheat _ ,” she says, because of course they're talking about his little hustle in the bar, and gets one knee up alongside his, then the other, sliding into his lap. “So let's see what you can really do.”

He really can't stop smiling, can he? Even as he hooks his fingers behind her knees and leans in to kiss her, moving up from his comfortable slouch only to be stopped by her finger on his lips.

 

“And  _ that _ is cheating,” she tells him.

 

He backs off, even takes his hands off her, raising them to his shoulders in a gesture of surrender, but not before he gently takes her fingertip between his flat nearly-harmless teeth, bitng playfully down.

 

“Alright, then what's fair?” he asks, and lets his hands fall back to the armrests. “Hope I can still get my hands on you, because one, I'm dying to, and two, I'm good, but I dunno about that good.You're the one with the killer voice, Captain.” 

“Are you implying that I could talk you off?” she asks, running her hands down his chest. Oh damn, look at that, some of the fasteners on his borrowed jacket are coming undone.

“You could  _ definitely  _ talk me off and I would love for you to try,” he answers immediately, still keeping his hands to himself as her arms go around his head, resting lightly on the chair back.

“I'll keep it in mind,” she says lightly and rolls her hips, pushing herself up onto her knees, deliberately framing her breasts between her arms  _ right  _ at the level of his face, if not for the thick wool sweater in the way. “But this isn't about you, is it?”

“No ma’am.”

“I  _ suppose _ you can touch, but not my lekku. Or my neck, or… hm.”

It's not like  _ everything  _ was off limits due to chemoreceptors, but there was a lot.

“Better idea,” he says, and pulls the officer’s finely-made, obviously quite expensive leather dress gloves out of his pants pocket.  _ Ha _ , they're monogramed. They got somebody Important. Or at least rich, which amounts to the same thing.

“Kinky,” she says, bites her lower lip as he pulls them on. Hello there… Looks like they weren't the only thing taking up space in the front of his pants. Oh, why not.

 

She lets one hand trail down his stomach and follows the line of him through his pants. Not all the way ready yet, if she's remembering Human males right, but he still twitches under her touch, and  _ hisses  _ through his teeth. 

 

“And here I thought you didn't bring your lightsaber along,” she purrs, and bursts out laughing at the conflicted expression on his stunned face.

That tips the balance between “awed/astonished” and “offended” over the edge. “Do you have _ any  _ idea how long I've wanted to be able to safely make that joke? And then you  _ steal it? _ ”

 

He joins her in laughter and shoves his face into her cleavage to muffle the next bit, but she hears it anyway:  _ Fucking  _ hells,  _ you're perfect. _

“A decade. A literal galactic-standard  _ decade,”  _ he tells her, looking up. Still keeps the lower half of his face mashed into her tits though, the man knows his priorities. “You're unbelievable.”

 

It's probably partially to hide the fact that he's grinning. His scowl is entirely unconvincing when there's that much laughter in his bright eyes, intense eyebrows notwithstanding. The rest of it is likely because it's fairly obvious where his preferences on the female form lie.

At least until his hands drop to her thighs, sliding up and around her hips, then down to palm her ass and  _ squeeze.  _ The motion pulls her tighter against him, her stomach to his chest and the v of her thighs against his hips. Oof.  _ Hi  _ there.

 

“To answer your question though, no. I didn't. That's all me,” he murmurs, low and rough, and follows the line of her stupid, impractical but admittedly sort of pretty lace underwear up the crease of her ass and out around her hips through the thin, stretchy fabric of her leggings with his fingertips. “And all for you.”

His hands continue around, push her gently back down to sit in his lap. His thumbs dip down between her legs as he follows the faint textural difference of the lace against her skin. 

 

“Not what I expected, honestly.”

“Not like I could wear shorts in that getup,” she counters, and sounds a little too breathless for her preferences. She made fun of him for getting wound up over practically nothing and now here she is getting wet over a little over-the-clothes action.

 

She had already resolved not to react when he found her first jil, but when he stops  _ just  _ short of touching it through her leggings she  _ whines _ at the unexpected absence. It's a tiny sound she chokes off immediately but it's not  _ fair _ , it's horrible, he's a tease and he looks so  _ bloody  _ smug. He takes the high ground for once, doesn't comment, just asks, “Do I get to see what I'm working with?”

“I think that's more for your benefit than mine.”

“Fair enough,” he says, and leans in again, stopping himself just short of his lips touching her pulsepoint as she leans back. “This is going to be more difficult than I thought.”

“Backing down already?”

_ “Hells  _ no,” he says, glancing up at her with an expression that implies she's completely insane before it softens, and he runs the backs of his fingers down her neck, the leather soft and  _ warm _ with his heat. “Guess you just don't realize how much something is part of your game until you can't use it.”

“So get creative.” 

“Don’t rush me.”

 

He certainly doesn't  _ seem _ rushed as he follows the line of her jaw and then the soft column of her throat with his fingertips. Even less so when he pauses at the divot between her collarbones, rubs gently. Soft, increasing then fading pressure, over and over. He's… oh.

_ Oh,  _ he can't kiss her, but this… 

 

He can damn well give the impression, show her what he  _ would _ do if he could.

And that is pulling the collar of her-- _ his _ sweater aside, and tracing the curve of her collarbone as his other hand slides up her thigh, under the thick bottom hem of the sweater, the thinner hem of her shirt underneath. Even under her clothes, his hand in the soft leather glove is still warm against her skin as he runs his hand up her side into the dip of her slender waistline.

 

She can't help flinching when his thumb brushes too lightly along her lowest ribs.

 

“You're ticklish,” he says, clearly absolutely delighted by the discovery.

_ “You  _ are a tease,” she grumbles, but doesn't deny it or bother to hide her smile.

“You like it.”

“Do I?”

“If  _ you  _ just wanted to get off, you wouldn't be playing this game,” he says, and his hand under her shirt moves upwards from her ribs and he traces the curve of her breast with the backs of his fingers before he cups it in his hand.

 

That. That is absolutely  _ ridiculous _ . She literally fits perfectly in his hand. What the hell?! Oh no, he's still talking.

 

“Especially since you've known for a  _ long  _ time that all you had to do was ask, and I'd screw you every way you could think of until you damn well  _ glowed,” _ he tells her, gloating, as he rolls his thumb around her nipple, makes her shiver.

“That's just a porn thing,” she argues, but leans into his touch anyway, rolls her hips a bit because  _ get on with it _ and now there's definitely something there to rub against. A lot of something _. Humans, _ honestly. Ridiculous, and it was _ so  _ hot.

“Is it?” he asks, grinning like he already knows the answer and it's not the one she thinks, as the hand on her collar moves slowly down, following the dip in her waistline again, over the thick sweater this time, to grab a handful of her ass.

“You're  _ that _ good?” Yeah, right. She would attempt to sound even more skeptical if she could but he's tucked his hand into the waistband of her leggings, the thin lacy band of her underwear--which barely qualifies as such--caught between his fingers and it's a little distracting. It pulls tight, finally giving her a bit of pressure on her jil,  _ both _ of them, and along her slit. 

“I've gotten good results in the past,” he says, then winces,  _ cringes  _ almost, and buries his face in her tits again. “Which, incidentally, if that's a concern… I'm clean but I'll hit whatever clinic you want and I have no problem with protection.”

“Mmm… very smooth,” she drawls, but scritches her fingers through his hair reassuringly, right around the tie of his ponytail.

“There is  _ no  _ way to make any part of that conversation sexy, damn it,” he grumbles, turning his head to glare up at her sideways. “But it's important, so…”

“May as well get it out of the way,” she finishes gently.

 

_ scritch scritchscritch _

He closes his eyes, makes a pleased noise not entirely unlike a growl, and she snickers.

 

“Should I have put you on a time limit, or should we scrap the plan and I just do this forever?

“I live here now.”

This is adorable and definitely something to do more often but  _ seriously?!  _ She wiggles again, and he chuckles.

“You always this impatient in bed?” 

“You always this  _ mouthy?” _

Well, you're not letting me do anything else fun wfffh--”

 

Oh good, if she shoves his face into her chest he shuts up.

 

_ Oof _ , damn, and gets down to business, squeezing his handful of her ass again, spreading her open slightly as he rolls her nipple between his fingers, pulls her tight against his hips.

If she keeps his face in her tits, she won't have to deal with his stupid smug grin at the sound she makes. Of course, she might also suffocate him, and that's counterproductive. Though apparently he can hold his breath for a good while... She can feel his mouth open, feel him set his teeth--his  _ teeth _ \--in the top of her breast, then move down to her nipple. Not a good idea normally but through the thick fabric it's just warm pressure like a rough, open-mouthed kiss and it's… weirdly hot? His teeth are flat, blunt, and not like they've been filed when he was little, like hers. It wouldn't hurt, not much, if he bit her… but there's still that edge of danger on top of the taboo, the reminder that he is  _ not  _ a twi'lek, biting is a Human thing.

 

He sets a slow, deliberate rhythm, push-pulling her into him, making her grind against the hard, thick ridge of his erection--the  _ other  _ reminder that he's alien, and frankly the more interesting one. He's putting  _ just  _ the right sort of constant-but-uneven pressure on her sex that she loves, and the thin scrap of wet silk pulled tight between her legs a line of shifting focus. He moves  _ just  _ so, his hand in soft leather curving down and around her ass with the lace tangled around his fingers so it pulls again, sends a burst of heat through her that makes her rock forward a little harder, makes her moan softly.

But when she starts to move with him, he  _ stops  _ her, the hand on her breast dropping to her hip and pushing her  _ back _ \--

He's turned his head sideways to breathe, and at some point both her hands have ended up threaded through his hair under the tie. It makes a good handle and he doesn't seem to mind and she's going to make a mental note about that whenever her brain stops short-circuiting.

He pushed her back so he could get his hand between her legs again, his fingers curled to rub his first knuckles down along the seam of her leggings,  _ so  _ gently it's more of a tease but at least he's actually touching her sex now. 

 

Having a lover that reads lekku-sign is so convenient, he knows the side-to-side flicker of the tips means  _ I'm getting impatient/Get a move on/More _ \--so he gives her a little more, pressing inwards over the softly swollen bead of her first jil as he strokes upward. 

 

Or because it smacked him right in the face. Whatever works. It does. He chuckles quietly, but works his hand between her legs, smooth leather over soft cotton soaked through with her slick, enough to make the leather shine dully as he does. 

There's no rhyme or reason to it, no pattern. Slow circles, small and focused, broad and less so. Rolling strokes up and down that let him turn his hand over, press against the soft, wet, hungry hollow of her slit.

He’s quiet now, he's  _ listening _ to every soft sound she makes, every hitching breath, every small hungry moan and shivery little sigh. 

 

He's figuring her out. 

 

Slower works better, as long as he keeps the pressure up, and her voice rises on something almost sharp enough to be called a wail when his fingers move just enough to curl behind her jil and  _ pull _ gently forward. Between her leggings in the way and the leather gone  _ slippery _ with her slick he can't catch it properly, but even then it's intense enough that she only notices that her lek is still in his face because he turns away--she told him  _ no skin contact _ and he listened, even when  _ she's  _ the one breaking the rules. 

 

All the focused attention is nice, but oh, that steady pressure,  _ that _ makes her shudder, push her hips down onto his hand.

And that makes his other hand, tangled in lace, pull it tight again.

_ That  _ rips another sharp, pleased and hungry sound out of her when the slippery fabric finally gets her second jil a little attention, her response all out of proportion to everything he's done so far. 

 

She would be annoyed at just how smug he sounds when he connects the dots, a quiet little,  _ ah _ that carries implications of all the lewd, lurid and only partially correct stereotypes of twi’lek with a more sensitive second jil--if it hadn't immediately been followed by his hand skating down her tailbone, middle fingers pressing teasingly against her asshole before continuing down to frame her jil.

She settles for pulling on his ponytail a bit in warning to keep his mouth shut--so stupid, it's supposed to be all dead cells, why are there nerve endings in it--but his reaction surprises her… that wasn't a pained sound, not with the way his dick twitched against her thigh.

And fuck  _ everything,  _ the gloves were a mistake. Yes, fine, he can't cheat, not that she'd pick up much off his hands anyway, not as much as his mouth--oh fuck  _ don't  _ think about that--but with his fingers framing her jil like this she can feel the fucking  _ seams  _ as he works her over with those slow, deep strokes that  _ pull  _ ever so slightly, stretch her slit open. He keeps his face turned into her chest, and she can feel his breathing tick up, turn harsh and eager, hot against her skin even through his sweater.

He's shifting under her, the hand between her legs going to her waist to steady her, as he--what is--?

As he braces his legs out wide and rolls  _ his  _ hips up into hers, pulling her close with the hand he has tucked under her ass to play with her second jil--and making her grind her first and all her wet sex up and down the length of his  _ hot _ erection oh fuck, oh  _ fuck _

 

“Oh  _ fuck _ \--”

“Good?” 

 

No, fuck it, she's  _ not  _ going to be mad him for laughing as he asks because he sounds as breathless as she does and  _ yes, fuck, fucking hells yes it's good _ \--

He nods against her chest and  _ now  _ he lets her move, lets her set the pace to rut against him. She's more flexible, naturally,  _ obviously,  _ and can build a smoother, more fluidly rolling slick-wet slide of their bodies together.

From the outside it looks like exactly the kind of dance he would have bought in that bloody bar and couldn't afford--but he's doing all the work. His hand at her waist and hip guiding her, keeping her steady as she rocks back and forth in his lap, on his cock, with his fingers working over her jil and over her  _ slit _ , still teasing her even now. Even as heat begins to slowly coil low in her core, a twist of fire with every press of his fingers, every sweet rolling thrust of his hips. He's panting harshly into her shoulder, his arm going tight around her waist as hers curve around his head and neck.

She clings to him as she starts to come undone, her fingers wound tightly in his hair, and her breathy moans spiral up into another wail when he finally,  _ finally  _ pushes his fingers into her slit, just in time for her jil to squeeze down on them as she pushes her hips against his one last time and  _ stays there _ and shakes to pieces.

He gasps sharply, pulls her impossibly closer against his chest, his fingers deep inside the pulse and flex of her cilia and--

 

_ ffffucking hells I want to feel that _ \--

 

growled into her shoulder as she shivers through the aftershocks and bright fucking  _ stars _ so does she--she wants to feel  _ that _ , feel him, and so she drags her hands out of his hair, down his chest, to pull at the flat metal belt buckle on his stolen uniform.

It comes undone with a clatter and the  _ snap  _ of popped threads as she pulls a little too hard and he laughs again, catches one of her hands in his. That's not really what stops her, a flex of his fingers still inside her, his palm against her jil has her crying out at another burst of heat in her core. 

 

“That's cheating,” he rasps, and he  _ smiles _ , the bastard, licks his eyeteeth as he looks at her. “And I don't want to ruin what is now my  _ absolute _ favorite sweater.”

 

So she backs off--just a bit, sitting back on his legs to run both her hands along the hot, twitching length of his hard cock…  _ over  _ his clothes, and he shudders under her, tips his head back against the chair with a thud and a ragged breath hissed through his clenched teeth. “Ahhh- _ hhand  _ I'm nnnot going to last near long enough for either of us to have much fun, so--”

 

“What about that  _ Jedi stamina?”  _ she teases, and gives him another stroke. 

 

He responds with another flex of his fingers, and an indignantly snarled,  _ It's been a while  _ she'd laugh at if she could breathe.

But she can't, because he's begun working his fingers into and over her slit again, sliding out to play with her jil, a little less smoothly than before, with all the attention she's giving him but he's managed to wind her up again already. He deserves a reward for that, doesn't he?

His hips buck underneath her when she takes her hands off him, but she catches the broken, pleading sound that tears out of him in a kiss, her hands framing his face. He still tastes like that summer storm, and more than that she can taste his  _ hunger,  _ and the building, cresting wave of pleasure in him until he breaks away long enough to rip the glove off his free hand with his teeth and shove that hand down the front of his pants, roughly jacking himself off. She pulls the leather out of his mouth to keep kissing him, to let his body pull hers to the edge again.

He’d been right--he breathes her name back into her mouth after just moments on a broken sigh  that she echoes, pulsing around his fingers, her jil holding them tightly inside her as he slumps back. 

 

Slower, softer kisses now, between both their ragged breaths as he slowly, carefully pulls his fingers from her slit.

“So,” he starts, still a little breathless, still smiling as she rests her forehead against his. “Did I get lucky?” he asks, bringing his fingers to his mouth to lick them clean. She kisses the past-broken bridge of his nose

“I think we both did,” she murmurs back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Kanan has been sitting on the 'Captain Hirani' line for... Months. Basically since day 1.


End file.
